We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kayla Durbin. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kayla below.

Hi Kayla, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by sharing your thoughts about the pros and cons of family businesses

At Friends Fur-Ever, we’re all about family and fun. We are big fans of community events and we noticed a gap in activities for kids at local vendor fairs, so we started this venture to bring affordable fun to families during these events.

As a family-owned business, we’re a tight-knit crew – my husband, our 13-year-old, our 7-year-old, and me. The kids are not just along for the ride; they’re hands-on at events, from stocking tables to helping shoppers.

Behind the scenes, they’re part of the decision-making process – selecting inventory, reviewing finances, and shaping the business’s direction. Friends Fur-Ever is more than a business; it’s a family adventure, hopefully, providing an education and experience that children can never learn in a traditional school setting.

Kayla, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Kayla and I, along with my family, am the owner of Friends Fur-Ever Mobile Plushing. We travel around to various vendor fairs and community events and stuff animals on-site.

I used to work traditional jobs but, when we had our 2nd child, I decided to take time off and be a stay-at-home mom. I still wanted to contribute to my family but on my own terms. Right before Covid, my husband I opened a cat cafe and helped 200 cats find homes. The cat cafe was extremely time consuming so we helped transition that to another rescue and it is thriving today.

I kept brainstorming various ideas of how I could make money without having to commit to a traditional full time job. We were at a food truck festival and there were kids running around, playing, but nothing there was for them specifically. We can all remember being drug along with our parents to places we didn’t want to be! So, we started thinking of ideas that we could attend these types of events with and provide a fun activity — Friends Fur-Ever was born!

Friends Fur-Ever is a mobile plush company. Friends that visit us get to pick from a large assortment of unstuffed plush animals and help stuff it with our large stuffing machine! After that, they choose a heart to put in their new furry friend and perform a special ceremony to bring the animal to life! They also have the option to accessorize and personalize their new plush friend!

We aim to be more than just a product but an entire experience!

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I think that our reputation in the market is built on the fun experience. We often have adults that want to make a plush but feel embarrassed or “too old,” however, we make it a point that you’re never too old to have fun at Friends Fur-Ever.

We also put a lot of weight behind the idea that we’re more than a product and that we’re an entire experience and I think that has translated well to our visitors. We have received very kind comments on social media and are often referred via word of mouth.

Have you ever had to pivot?

My entire life, I followed the traditional path. I graduated high school, went to college, received a certification, and obtained a job. It was never enjoyable but it was what I was told I was “supposed to do.”

After the birth of our second child, we were financially stable enough that I was able to be a stay-at-home mom. This was fantastic and I’m extremely grateful for this, however, I felt guilt for not being able to contribute to our family financially. My husband has an entrepreneurial mindset so he was very supportive in me starting my own business and working on my own terms.

In December 2019, we started a cat cafe called Nine Lives Lounge. We partnered with a local humane society and aided in the fostering and adoption of 200 cats. This was extremely time consuming and COVID really hurt attendance. After 2 years, we decided to close the lounge. Fortunately, another rescue was interested and we helped transition the lounge to this new rescue and they are thriving today.

In August of 2022, we decided to try again but with something less demanding. We were attending various food truck festivals and vendor fairs throughout the summer and noticed that they were often lacking child activities. Our kids were huge fans of Build-A-Bear so we started researching what it’d take to launch a mobile plush service and discovered our partners that we work with today.

The transition from a traditional 9-5 job to stay at home mom to business owner has been exciting and scary at the same time but I would not trade it for anything. In today’s world, people just want to be happy and have fun and I am beyond grateful that we have the opportunity to provide a small piece of excitement to people’s lives.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://friendsfureverpa.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/friendsfureverpa
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/friendsfureverpa
• Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@friendsfureverpa